Untold Tales of Evan Daniels
by Julia456
Summary: Quick crossovers starring... well, Evan.
1. 1

First off, I haven't put a fic up in FOREVER, and the really really good fics I've got are still in the process of being written, and so in desperation I dug through the folder of discarded-yet-finished stories until I found this, which has the vaguely redeeming value of being silly. So. Bear with me here for a bit.

Disclaimer haiku: Short and sweet and yet/ I don't own any of it./ So don't sue me, 'kay?

Notes: The title is shamelessly borrowed from 'Untold Tales of Spider-Man,' which was an exceedingly brilliant comic that I wish I could've purchased every month. I also took, sort of, the basic premise - in this case, stories no one sees "on-screen." That's because they're crazy and totally never going to happen, but ah well. Why Evan? Because, when I sat down to think of insane crossovers, I found a bunch for him and zero for the other characters. So there.

All the stories are set during Evan's early days with the Morlocks.

* * *

**Not Quite Giant Alligators**

**(or, Evan Meets His New Neighbors)**

* * *

The sewers beneath New York City were more extensive than most people realized. Evan Daniels had grown up there - aboveground - and had no idea just how big the underground was. You could spend your whole life down there, which was fortunate, because currently that appeared to be his destiny.

Trying not to make too much noise, he scratched at an insistently itchy spot on his right arm where a bone was getting ready to pop through. It wasn't like Callisto and the Morlocks were bad company or anything. He got along with them pretty well. The Morlocks didn't treat anyone like a freak, and in fact he had one of the milder mutations in the group.

But he did miss his old life. The part with skateboarding, anyway. Not a lot of places to skate in the sewers and subway tunnels.

That was why he was sneaking around on the fringes of the Morlock territory.

Callisto had maps all over the place, most of them detailing the ins and outs and borders of her tribe's home, and as a matter of due course Evan had been instructed to learn them all. One area of tunnels had been marked with a single enigmatic symbol - more like a blob of ink, really. He'd squinted at it for a bit, trying without success to figure out what it was, then noticed the "Off limits" notation scrawled beneath it. Then he'd noticed that the tunnels in that section were marked as track-free and full-pipe.

Smooth, circular brick tunnels with no tracks to trip him up? A skateboarder's dream.

Asking Callisto had gotten him nowhere besides a decisive, "That's not our territory. Those who live there know how to defend themselves. Stay away."

So he'd asked some other Morlocks, all of whom shrugged, shivered, or shook their heads. No one explained why this area was so forbidden. One old guy had mumbled something about rats - or maybe just a rat, Evan wasn't sure - but that had been it.

Evan had pondered it for a few days, then decided that the chance to get some skateboarding in was worth the risk of running into evil sewer rats. Or rat. And now he was cautiously making his way through the narrow access channels to the stretch of full-pipe heaven.

A rusting metal grate up ahead signaled the end of the line. Evan popped a spike and used it to quietly pry open the grate, then dropped the two or three feet to the curving tunnel floor. His skateboard remained in the access channel; he wasn't going to start doing anything until he was sure that the coast was clear.

That was hard to do when it was pitch-black dark - as it always was underground, where city planners had neglected to put street lights. Evan had a flashlight with him, of course, but it was for emergencies only. Batteries were practically impossible to come by. He took a few steps into the tunnel, feeling it out like Wolverine would've, listening for anything suspicious.

He heard the drip of water, the faint rumble of distant subway trains, and the unmistakable sound of someone breathing nearby.

Evan froze, then forced himself to scan for the source of the breathing. Slowly, slowly...

There. A figure - barely more than a short, darker shadow against the blackness - was standing off to his left side, several yards down the tunnel.

Not good. But one-on-one - yeah, he could handle that. Evan took a breath and pushed outward slightly, making his spikes bristle up in what he knew was an impressive display. The figure took a step backwards; Evan sensed the movement more than heard it.

He also sensed, not heard, a weapon being drawn.

Quick, much quicker than he'd ever moved in the Danger Room, Evan sent a rain of bone spikes whistling through the air, but the figure was suddenly not there. Evan whirled, trying to get them back into his field of vision - and was met with the sight of three more figures, apparently identical to the first, gathered around him. The only way not blocked was the way he'd come, at his back.

Even in the nonexistent light, he made out weapons in all of their hands. The weapons were raised and ready, and they sure looked like they knew how to use them.

'Those who live there know how to defend themselves,' Callisto had said. Evan swallowed. He'd never been the best X-Man in terms of fighting skills, and he was even worse off now, with his powers acting weird. And his only real combat experience - the Brotherhood didn't count - was against a robot that had kicked his butt in just a few minutes.

But he had an exit. He could stay and fight, and lose, or he could get the heck out of there. A few weeks earlier, out of pride and stubbornness and anger, he would've stood his ground no matter what. It worked for Wolverine. Except he wasn't Wolverine, and this wasn't happening a few weeks earlier.

If nothing else, living on the edge of civilization had taught him prudence.

Evan took a step backwards, then another, then scrambled back into the access channel and headed for Morlock territory at high speed.

The four shadowed figures lowered their weapons and watched Evan's leave-taking with no small amount of curiosity.

"What was that thing?" one asked, as Evan's ringing footfalls echoed further and further away.

"Teenage mutant ninja porcupine?"

"Shut up, Mikey."

"Probably just a stray Morlock. He looked pretty young."

"Looked like a spy to me."

"Give it up, Raph. You know the deal Master Splinter cut with that Callisto lady. They leave us alone, we leave them alone, and everyone gets along."

"Hey, yeah - good fences make good neighbors!"

"Shut UP, Mikey. And all I'm saying, Leo, is maybe we should look into better security. Donny?"

"I'll see if I can rig something up. I guess."

"Maybe we should talk to Callisto again."

The serious nature of the conversation was interrupted once again, this time with a genuinely curious question: "So I was just thinking, guys - how come we never run into giant alligators?"

"Oh, come on, Mikey..."

"Yeah. You know there's no such thing."

"There could be!"

"Giant alligators," one of them muttered, at once scornful and incredulous, and the words echoed around the sewer tunnels as the four turtles headed home.

The sewers beneath New York were more extensive than most people realized - and the Morlocks weren't the only mutants living there.


	2. 2

Note: I seriously doubt that more than a handful of people will get this crossover without some help. Just FYI - Evan's run-in here is with the star of that late, lamented thirty-minute CGI toy commercial, 'Max Steel.' Which I dearly love despite its occasional overwhelming cheesiness.

* * *

**A Sporting Chance**

**(or, Why It's Always Good To Network)**

* * *

"No, you ask him."

"Nuh-uh, it was your idea, dude."

The voices belonged to two kids - boys, probably young teenagers, trailing some distance behind him. Considering that he'd just come off of a pretty awesome day of competition, Josh figured they were getting up the nerve to ask him for his autograph.

"Make it fast," the second kid hissed, apparently winning the argument. "She's waitin' for us."

Josh paused outside the command van, kneeling and pretending to adjust something on his bike. He didn't mind signing autographs - he'd do it all day long, in fact. It was all part of being a recognized sports figure, and that was cool. He was just glad they weren't after a signature from Kat.

"Hey," the first kid said, sounding slightly overconfident.

Josh looked up. "Yeah?"

The boy was all but buried beneath a bulky jacket; the hood was pulled down over his face, hiding all but his nose and mouth in shadow. It being a cold day in New York, edging towards sunset, that wasn't sufficiently odd to worry Josh.

"You're Josh McGrath, right?" More overconfidence. It was the kind of cocky bluster that a lot of athletes gave off. Himself included.

"Sure am." He stood up, brushing off his hands. "What's up?"

The kid thrust a slightly rumpled stack of paper at him. The paper was stapled in one corner and folded back. A bunch of scribbled signatures were organized in neat columns. "It's a petition. We're getting signatures from all the athletes."

Josh revised his age estimate of the boy to fifteen or sixteen. He took the papers, noting without caring that the boy was wearing big ski gloves. It was cold out. "Petition for what?"

The boy shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "The guy that sponsored this competition - he's making this drink. It's toxic. He knows it and he's not stopping. So we're gonna get a bunch of athletes and other people to sign it and take it to the courts."

Josh flicked the papers back to the first page. "HELP STOP POW-R8" was written in bold letters across the top. "Pow-R8? The sports drink?"

The boy nodded, making the hood bob up and down. "Yeah. It's poison, dude." He seemed to draw inward a little, and there was a bitter tang to his next words: "Trust me on that one."

Josh frowned, thinking. It was a reputable company, run by a reputable businessman, and why they would deliberately make a toxic sports drink was almost too bizarre to believe.

Almost. After all, Josh was a guy with nanomachines in his blood who regularly battled cyborgs and genetically-altered snake creatures all over the world. And just a few months ago, a reputable businessman with a reputable company had tried to blow up a sports park - and one of his friends along with it.

He made an impulse decision and gave the boy a grin. "You got a pen?"

"Uh..." The boy took his hands out of his pockets and turned around. "Dude! I need a pen!"

The second kid produced a pen from somewhere and tossed it over. The boy fumbled it with his gloves, and the pen fell to the asphalt. Muttering, the boy stripped off a glove and picked up the cheap plastic thing. He handed it over to Josh. "Here."

Josh took the pen automatically, more interested in the hand that gave it to him. The boy's skin was marred with several rough-looking yellowish patches, almost like outgrowths of bone. "Thanks, uh..."

"Evan," the boy said. He already had the glove back on.

Josh signed his name without paying attention. So there was the explanation for the gloves, he thought. What was hidden beneath the jacket and the hood? "How many signatures do you guys have so far?"

"Almost a thousand," Evan answered. He was shifting from one foot to the other, clearly getting anxious to leave.

Josh gave the petition and the pen back. "Hope you win."

The petition disappeared into the depths of the jacket. Evan nodded again; Josh thought he caught a glimpse of more yellowish patches on the boy's face. "Thanks a lot, man."

"Evan!" the second kid called. "Move it! We're gonna be late!"

Evan looked at Josh one last time, then jogged off. Josh watched the two boys go, curious. Someone was waiting for them, and there was a schedule; he wanted to see where they went. But they only ran across the street and into an alleyway. Weird.

Still, he'd seen weirder. He stowed the bike and went inside the van. "I'm back, bro!"

Berto was watching a movie and doing paperwork. Surprising, the amount of paperwork it required to keep an extreme-sports team afloat. Without taking his eyes off the flat-screen TV, he asked, "Did Kat leave already?"

"Yeah." Josh shook his head, dropping onto the couch next to Berto. The movie of choice today was 'The Day The Earth Stood Still.' Black-and-white and too old for him to care about. "I don't even want to know what they're going to do."

Berto raised an eyebrow. "A 'girls' night out' in New York City with a bunch of extreme athletes? Nothing legal."

Josh silently agreed with that assessment, then changed the subject. "Hey, speaking of illegal stuff, what do you know about Pow-R8?"

"The sports drink?" Berto paused the movie and resettled his glasses on his nose. "Not much. It was yanked from the market a few weeks ago after a promotional run. I think I read something about it being toxic."

Now Josh knew why he'd gotten the feeling that things here were just a little screwy. Instinct. A good spy could spot trouble from a mile away - especially if he had Max nanoprobes enhancing his vision. Besides, he'd seen this stuff too many times. "Like, environmentalists-hate-it toxic, or get-me-to-the-hospital toxic?"

"The second one. But only for mutants. I think," Berto added after a beat, frowning. "Why?"

" 'Cause I just heard a dirty rumor that it's back in production."

Berto put down his pen and pulled his laptop closer, an unspoken prelude to hacking. "From who?"

"A mutant, I think."

"They would probably know," he muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard with the speed of a true-blue computer geek, someone who dreamed in code and understood binary as a written language. "And they're right. Spears signed a contract with... let's see... Shaw Industries. Wow. They're asking for over a million gallons of the stuff."

"Bro," Josh said slowly, working through the idea as it came to him. "What would happen if someone reputable, someone high up in the business, came forward with that?"

"Spears would have to stop," Berto said. "But who do we... oh. Like the president and CEO of N-Tek?"

"None other," Josh said with no small amount of satisfaction, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in his father's number.

* * *

Two days and fifty-nine signatures later, the Morlocks were on the verge of delivering their petition to the New York legal system when the news broke. Jefferson Smith of N-Tek fame, one of the most respected men in the sporting-goods industry, had informed the EPA of Spears' continued production of a banned substance. As a result the FBI had raided Spears' main production facilities and found the allegations were in fact truthful, and Spears was suddenly in a lot of trouble. So much so that his company teetered on bankruptcy.

"Dude," Evan said, reading the article. Dreamer had snatched a newspaper from Upworld and now they were all clustered around it, trying to read over everyone's shoulders. "That's awesome!"

"It's suspicious," Callisto said, narrowing her eye at the paper. "Why would an equipment manufacturer know what a sports drink magnate was doing?"

"Maybe they play golf together," Feral suggested, baring her teeth at the joke, which was met with general Upworld-derisive laughter. Further suggestions followed, growing increasingly more unlikely and hysterical at the same time, until it was decided by Callisto that the time for seriousness was past and the Morlocks should, for once, celebrate. So they did.


	3. 3

**Spin It!**

**(or, Other Mutated Freaks of New York)**

* * *

The Morlocks were, among other things, professional lawbreakers. They had to be, as a matter of simple survival. The more human-looking went out and begged for change during the day, while the obvious mutants went out and practiced their breaking-and-entering skills during the night. Around the clock, they went dumpster diving and scavenging, picking over the city's refuse and finding a rather surprising amount of usable items. People threw out all kinds of things that were still useful, like the personal computer whose monitor was cracked but which otherwise was in perfect working order. Evan had found that one, to the great acclaim of the group, which had gone computerless since the last such find broke for real. Hacking let them do a lot more, including altering police reports to their benefit.

But sometimes, they just stole things. Skids was a prolific pickpocket and petty thief; Ape was a great second-story man; and Callisto could have cleaned out any bank in town if she'd so desired. Evan was better at scrounging, but he had discovered - with a half-hearted dismay - that his X-Men training had given him a distinct talent for getting into places he didn't belong.

For example, the pawn shop they were currently raiding.

"The alarm is out but we need to move fast," Callisto said, hissing the words as she swept into the store proper, leaving the door swinging open behind her.

"Why?" Evan asked Skids, creeping in after Callisto. There were only four of them beside Callisto - just enough to carry away any loot.

Skids shook her head, on edge. "We're too far uptown. This is a bad area for us."

"Less talking!" Callisto ordered. "Daniels, get over here!"

Evan vaulted the counter and saw what she wanted him to do. He popped open the cash register's drawer with a bone spike and backed off to let one of the others rake out the money.

"There's a safe in the back," Cybelle said, reporting in to Callisto. "I think Daniels can bust the lock without trashing it."

"Where is it?" Evan asked, but he never did find out, because the grimy, cluttered front window suddenly exploded inward, and one of the Morlocks was snatched away by an invisible hand.

Callisto uttered a curse and then shouted, "Away!"

All the Morlocks in the pawn shop stopped what they were doing and ran, scattering into the night through every available exit. Evan left by the door they'd entered, not knowing what to expect but knowing he had to get out of there fast.

An energy blast lit up the street behind him, turning it briefly into noontime. The light was accompanied by a thumping noise, and a half-second later Erg came into view, framed by the alley walls, stumbling in the effort to flee faster, tugging at a viscous substance that covered his shoulder. He tripped over his feet and hit the pavement.

Evan stopped and went back to help Erg up, pulling him to his feet. "What was that?"

He shook his head, tearing away from Evan with a fear-stressed, "I hate Upworld, man, I hate it..."

Evan stared at his disappearing form, looked over his shoulder, saw nothing, heard nothing, and hesitated for a moment before running again himself. A moment too long, as it turned out, because something grabbed the back of his jacket and jerked him into the air. "HEY!"

"Shoot," a voice said above him. "All those fish and I caught the littlest one."

Evan kicked and struggled, trying to sever whatever it was that was holding him in the air. A rope of some kind, only more gooey and elastic. His efforts didn't matter because more of the stuff wrapped around him, trapping his hands in the folds of his jacket. He tried to see who was talking, who had nabbed him, but couldn't. "Let me go!"

"No," the voice said, drawing the word out until it was a mockery. "Here's a better idea: I leave the cops a nice little gift-wrapped package."

"I'm not a criminal!" Evan said, fighting to get his hands loosened enough to let him cut through the goo.

"Then what would you be, little fish?" The voice got louder as the speaker drew closer, and Evan could finally see who it was. Two big, ovoid white eyes stared back, set in a red mask covered with black webs. Upside down.

Evan's own eyes widened, and he momentarily stopped struggling. He knew that mask - saw it almost every day splashed over the city's newspapers. "Spider-Man?"

"Oh, good, my publicist is doing his job." Spider-Man tilted his head to one side, clearly evaluating, and making Evan suddenly conscious of the yellow-white bones jutting out of his face. "You know, you do look familiar."

"I'm a mutant, duh." Evan resumed twisting in the webbing, trying to get that one extra centimeter...

Spider-Man stayed exactly where he was, apparently frozen in thought, and in that time Evan managed to pop a bone out a little further and slice at the webbing, which accomplished nothing at all.

"The big robot fight - yeah, you're one of the X-Men!" Spider-Man said, snapping his fingers, sounding impressed and curious at the same time.

"Used to be," Evan said. He couldn't cut the webbing, but maybe, if he pushed out with all of his spikes at once, he could rip the stuff to shreds and escape that way. Whatever he did, he'd have to hurry, because Callisto was notoriously impatient, and he could hear sirens wailing already.

Spider-Man swung sideways and landed on the wall, right-side up and facing Evan, clinging to the brick with his fingertips and toes. He glanced back at the pawn shop, its door swinging ajar, window busted out, and nodded. "No offense, but it looks like they've got a lousy pension plan."

"Yeah?" Evan retorted. "I hope it's better than your health insurance!"

Then he pushed, making those bones near the surface pop free altogether and shoot out - his favorite trick - and those bones deeper inside merely expand. The end result was that the webbing was torn apart and Spider-Man suddenly found himself dodging a hail of spikes.

Some of the spikes caught Spider-Man's costume on the fabric's outer margin, pinning him to the building and probably cutting him besides. "Ow! Hey, watch it, X!"

Evan did no such thing. He fired one last spike, severing the final thread that held him up, then dropped and hit the pavement running. He veered around a corner and found Callisto waiting for him; the Morlock leader grabbed him as he flew past and pulled him, hard, into the shadows and into one of their better-hidden emergency access points to the tunnels beneath Manhattan.

Spider-Man, having taken a few seconds to wrench the bone spikes from the wall and the fabric of his much-abused costume, bounded into the same alleyway and found nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a helpful jingle from his spider-sense.

"Huh," he said, scratching his head. Then he shrugged and, having no time to waste solving vanishing acts, gave it up and went swinging off in search of non-mutant criminals, or maybe a fiendish mastermind or two. "Kids with bone spikes. What will they think of next."


	4. 4

**Who Ya Gonna Call?**

**(or, A Doctor's Housecall In Reverse)**

* * *

The doorbell rang at precisely 5:27 AM. Despite being two floors up and half-buried in a meditative trance, Dr. Stephen Strange knew this because he'd been expecting visitors, and was therefore keeping an eye on the clock.

He broke the trance and stood, retrieving his cloak from where he'd set it aside, and fastened it around his shoulders in a swirl of red and gold cloth as he descended from his sanctum into the house proper. The golden Eye of Agamotto rested on his chest in its customary place.

"Good morning," he said, inclining his head politely at the young woman standing defiantly in the middle of his foyer; she had evidently let herself in. Wearing a disreputable trenchcoat and an even more disreputable eypatch, she was distinctly out of place in the elegent, if eclectic, environs. However, she was known to Strange and he had, after all, been expecting her.

"There's a demon in the subway," Callisto said without preamble.

The Morlocks had previously come to his attention some time before, when one of his mystical battles had taken him into the underground of New York. Then, Callisto and her people had been silent, wary observers, staying well clear of the fight, but Strange had made a point of seeking her out later and explaining his mission. The so-called dregs of society made convenient targets for the darker forces at work in the multiverse, and it would thus be useful, he'd thought, to know someone there.

"I suspected as much," he said, that being the only reason she would appear at his door, or that negative magical energy would ripple across the city's spectra. "Have you seen it?"

Callisto shook her head and pushed her younger companion forward with a not ungentle shove. "No, but he did."

The boy was a teenager, dressed in an oversize jacket with the hood pulled respectfully back. Bones studded his face and spiked off his neck and shoulders. Hands in his pockets, he glanced around, radiating nervousness, and gave Strange a tentative nod. "Uh... hey. I'm Evan."

"Good morning, Evan. I'm Dr. Strange," he said. He'd never cultivated a bedside manner and it showed. "I'd like to hear about your experience with the demon."

"It wasn't much. I mean, I just saw him." He scratched his dyed-blond hair. "I think it was a him."

"All right. What did he look like, if it was a him?"

Evan's brow furrowed in concentration. "I... He was kinda hanging back in the shadows, but it wasn't really how he looked, y'know. I could feel him, it, whatever." Strange closed his eyes briefly, searching out the truth. He saw what the boy had seen: a thin, skeletal figure, crouching in the shadows, sunk in black, throwing off the foul, desperate decay of human souls in pain. Then a flash of bright light, momentarily blinding, and the creature vanished. "And you felt... what? Anger? Sadness?"

"Sadness, yeah," Evan said immediately, bobbing his head up and down. "But more than that. Like - like the whole world was crushing me. Only for a second, though. A train came by and he split."

Strange nodded, grimly. The boy's account confimed all of his suspicions regarding the demon's identity; it wasn't a major demon, but it was by no means a minor one, either. "D'Spayre. Blast."

"What should we do?" Callisto asked, drawing Evan back with one protective hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Get out of the tunnels for a few days. Try to clear out the non-mutants, too - D'Spayre will feed on anyone." Strange turned with a billow of his cloak, climbing the stairs to his sanctum again. "I'll deal with him."

True to her nature, Callisto rebelled against this order. "We won't leave the tunnels!"

"Callisto," Strange said, looking over his shoulder. "Thank you for informing me of the situation."

She snarled and pulled her trenchcoat's collar higher, hiding her face, and muttered something that began, "Last time I ever..."

Strange paused on the landing and waited. He had no intention of leaving his guests alone in a room filled with priceless ancient artifacts, most of which packed a considerable magical wallop.

Evan looked up at him, but flicked his gaze away quickly to Callisto. "So that's it?"

Callisto looked as though she might kill someone. She also looked as though she had accepted Strange's pronouncement, grudgingly, and that was proved when she said, "That's it. Come on. I know a place we can hide 'for a few days', but we'll have to get there before dawn."

"Wait - we're just going to ditch because he said so?" Evan said, full of the indignance of the young. "That's whacked!"

"If you prefer to stay behind, descend into insanity as a demon feeds off your negative psychic energy, and be destroyed in a sorceror's battle," Strange said calmly, not without a touch of amusement, "please, feel free to do so."

"Come on," Callisto said again, taking the boy by the arm. She was less gentle this time.

Evan wavered, throwing a scowl at Strange and a protest at Callisto. "But -"

She dragged him towards the door. "No second opinions here, kid. The good doctor doesn't..."

The voices trailed off as the door swung shut behind them.

Dr. Strange, Sorceror Supreme, Master of the Mystic Arts, former surgeon of world reknown, resealed the door with a warding spell, and then resumed his climb to his sanctum sanctorum. The diagnosis was made; only the operation remained. No second opinions indeed.


End file.
